I have no advice but want to say that I think every feeling you are experiencing is valid. I am sure the grief and sadness are huge, but I also know that there will be a time when you will be ready to move forward and continue to do all that is good and right for your daughter and your family. My prayers are with you. :grouphug::grouphug:

We own the Solo series.

We have used bookshare extensively for the past 3 years. Although we do have an iPad and iPhone, we have not bothered with the read2go because we already have a system that we either read text on the computer (Kurzweil or ReadOutLoud from the Solo series or the as html) or with a Kindle.

We have a Kindle and iPad. Ds primarily uses the Kindle for Bookshare. He almost never reads eText on the iPad.

Adding in to the brainstorming.... Could you do some sort of "virtual yard sale". I guess that would be eBay. :tongue_smilie: That might reduce the pressure of selling in your area. We have been surprised that things I thought were junk have made money on eBay. Alternatively, could you sell homemade crafts over the Internet? Keep brainstorming. I don't think you should give up hope on this project.

I immediately thought of "Braidy the Story Braid". At a talk by an SLP, she mentioned this and demonstrated briefly the use of it. Basically, beads that are strung on the doll and represent key story grammar ideas: they serve as cues. The beads are added in a linear sequence to help with the sequencing of the story. Other than that, I don't remember much, but this maybe a place to help you... http://www.mindwingconcepts.com/braidy-the-story-braid

You know, this kind of history is very helpful to a NP. I think you have enough questions that an appointment would be warranted.

Here's what I would do: 1- email prior to the next session and ask that 15 or so minutes be devoted to having a goal setting conversation. 2-In that conversation, I would share what your concerns about reading are, and see what she says. Perhaps she doesn't share those as areas of greatest concerns, and she is trying to be strategic. As far as writing, perhaps her sense is that your ds's spelling is what is limiting his sentence complexity. Perhaps, she feels that working too much on phonemes (for reading) will not be as helpful for reading at this stage, but perhaps she can catch that up through spelling. When she says writing, is that HANDwriting? or composition? If this is about HANDwriting, and that is currently not a huge goal, I would be very clear that this is NOT your goal and you have alternative strategies. However, perhaps your ds's HANDwriting is impaired enough that it is really getting in the way of tutoring/ practicing phoneme/ graphemes. In fact, I read about the remediation program developed at Boys Town that specifically went after spelling to remediate reading because it was easier to get older kids to be goal oriented around spelling. 3-Next, you are just starting. The first few sessions can be tough because you all are getting to know each other. 4-I would discuss the matter of homework, and that you are more than willing to do homework with your ds. You are willing to sit in on sessions to see what needs to be done, and then re-inforced at home. Frankly, I would think she would WELCOME that. And, so that you know, that is the manner ds tutor worked. (I sat in on all sessions---he went once a week--- then I would spend the rest of the week practicing and re-inforcing through homework the tutor assigned. This was HIGHLY effective and we were finished in 10 months). PS-I would also mention that comment about the "storm" in your one-on-one conversation because that seems odd, and also letting her know how your son took that kind of a statement. OK-I will now answer your questions..... 1. Is this normal for a 1st session? First sessions are awkward. 2. Am I interfering too much? I can not make that call. If the work she is doing is not helping to meet your own goals, then I would say you are not interfering too much, but instead making sure that you all are aligned. 3. Does your child have things to work on between tutoring sessions? Yes, he worked about 30 minutes of homework, with the expectation that he read 1 hour for pleasure each day. 4. Should she know that kids with dyslexia have a difficult time retrieving? Yes. Absolutely. 5. Should I give this more time? I would talk first before I decided on that. I just hate paying two car payments a month for something that we have doing all along! I guess I had hoped for more.... I would ask what her expectation for a time frame for the work she is planning. I know for us I was more than willing to fork over $300/ month for 10 months (if it was 2 years, I would have been a bit more reticent). Good luck!

Thank you for updating. I will keep your daughter, you, your family and the doctors in my prayers. I hope that there will be answers, healing and understanding.

It sounds to me like you know in your heart was is the best plan for YOUR family. Hope you all have a wonderful, joyous year!

Hey! Fantastic!!!!! :001_smile::001_smile::001_smile:

I think you have a good point. I do know that there are assessors in the area that will do an abbreviated session based on previous testing (whether they did it themselves) and give rec. But whether they would diagnose is a different issue. One can receive accommodations based on a school eval (this is done all the time for ps students; most don't go the route of outside eval for 504/ IEP)

Rude!

Uh, chalk it up to the dumb things people say category? And then laugh about it later. I still laugh about ridiculous things people have said to me: 1) Learning to stand in line is a valuable skill and my kids will not learn it if they don't go to school 2) My kids don't know how to sit still in church because they don't go to school :lol:

I would say both. I would remediate what you can, within the time frame you are willing to spend, but also make sure you do have the label of dyslexia so that you can always receive accommodations as some things (such as processing speed or spelling) that can not be fully remediated.

This is a cut and paste I wrote from another thread. I may say something controversial but I would start with the school district because they can administer the tests that you would need to see to determine what is going on. If after the tests are administered you could always schedule an appoint with a neuropsych to discuss, and discuss diagnosis. Here are the reasons I suggest this: 1) Going through the school is free 2) You can ask for a WISC-IV, a CTOPP, WIAT-III (a Woodcock-Johnson or another type of achievement test) and a CEF ( I think that is the name...it is one done by an SLP to look at expressive/ receptive language). These are the exact same tests that would be done by a np. 3) With results of those tests in hand you should be able to sort out which professionals to bring into the picture (if there are indeed expressive/ receptive language issues, you would look for an SLP; if you see low scores on CTOPP you begin to remediate for dyslexia) 4) The school can not diagnose. Usually when they administer those tests it is for services....if you want services through the school district that is another thread to ask for opinions from others 5) You can always take the battery of tests results and have a neuropsych review them with you (at a reduced cost or perhaps the neuropsych would suggest testing, etc....but at least you would have some sort of starting point) I know that others may disagree with me on this strategy-- those have had aberrant testing results through the school, or who have been misled by the school district-- so I would listen for those experiences and decide relative to them. Furthermore, I have not gone this route, but in retrospect I wish we would have (and at the age you are at now....not as an 10 yo). Likewise, you may wish to just start off with a neuropsych since you will likely get the best and most directed information. However, that can be a very expensive route (we were billed close to 3K, with insurance covering 1/2). OK-got to run.

I would totally be doing Calvert if we hadn't joined a co-op two years ago that requires a lot of time away from home. 8th grade: Math: Foerster Algebra I with Math without Borders teaching CDs History: Pandia Press History Odyssey II Early Moderns (with a 6 week hiatus for our state's history course...high school grad req.) Science:APEX online (offered through our co-op and we need a broad science background/ vocab before high school) World Language: ASL 102 (co-op; hs/college credit) Literature: Mix between Lightening Literature and co-op middle school class Composition: rolled into ASL, middle school class, LL and History (specific goals include persuasive writing, outlining and some sentence level tricks) Extra: Archery Guitar Free reading (1 hour per day)

I have a workload. I don't know if it is heavier or lighter. I have very specific goals, and then I map those to each of my children (one is dyslexic, and one is not). So when we were remediating ds's reading and spelling--that was included in the schedule. I also think about how much I really want to be working a day...I want us to be done BEFORE 3:00 because the days are just too long after that (although free reading is usually after 3:00). Mid- last year, I started trying to integrate goals across subjects. So, for example, at that point I wanted ds to regularly write 5 paragraph essays. So, that was rolled into another subject, the writing curricula dropped, and composition was instructed as he regularly wrote. This turned out to be really successful. The other thought that I had when selecting curriculum this year and designing our schedule was that one of the curricula that I was selecting, a writing curricula (because I was feeling internal pressure to DO IT ALL), was just boring and tedious. However, I remembered back to last year's great success of rolling writing goals into different areas and immediately realized that I honestly didn't want to add in something that was more work and boring (and also had a very narrow expectation of output). Grammar is another subject that I am rolling into our other work. So I guess this highlights another strategy which is to look very carefully at the amount of time versus how much academic output that you are going to get. For example, our history curriculum has mapwork every other lesson or so. This takes ds a really long time. I asked myself if this mapwork is so incredibly valuable that ds does every single map or are there shortcuts (like not doing them or printing out already filled in maps that ds circles the items...etc...). Grammar was another item, although easy enough to compete, was not really transferring into a meaningful way into ds writing and understanding of how to analyze his work for fragments/ run-ons etc... So, I just instructed him within the context of his writing on strategies to look at his sentences. Therefore, grammar, for me, is another item that the time doesn't justify the academic output at this stage in the game (although we have done grammar for 3 years in the past). I also keep a really big picture in mind about how valuable each item is to my bigger picture. So sometimes there are other goals, for example learning how to manage work independently that are not at all curriculum, but need the space to learn. So I think only you can answer if you think your work is too much, and if it aligns with how you want to spend your days and where you are going. Good luck!

:iagree::iagree:

I may say something controversial but I would start with the school district because they can administer the tests that you would need to see to determine what is going on. If after the tests are administered you could always schedule an appoint with a neuropsych to discuss, and discuss diagnosis. Here are the reasons I suggest this: 1) Going through the school is free 2) You can ask for a WISC-IV, a CTOPP, WIAT-III (a Woodcock-Johnson or another type of achievement test) and a CEF ( I think that is the name...it is one done by an SLP to look at expressive/ receptive language). These are the exact same tests that would be done by a np. 3) With results of those tests in hand you should be able to sort out which professionals to bring into the picture (if there are indeed expressive/ receptive language issues, you would look for an SLP; if you see low scores on CTOPP you begin to remediate for dyslexia) 4) The school can not diagnose. Usually when they administer those tests it is for services....if you want services through the school district that is another thread to ask for opinions from others 5) You can always take the battery of tests results and have a neuropsych review them with you (at a reduced cost or perhaps the neuropsych would suggest testing, etc....but at least you would have some sort of starting point) I know that others may disagree with me on this strategy-- those have had aberrant testing results through the school, or who have been misled by the school district-- so I would listen for those experiences and decide relative to them. Furthermore, I have not gone this route, but in retrospect I wish we would have (and at the age you are at now....not as an 10 yo). Likewise, you may wish to just start off with a neuropsych since you will likely get the best and most directed information. However, that can be a very expensive route (we were billed close to 3K, with insurance covering 1/2). OK-got to run.

If it appears that your dd is having struggles with working memory (not holding digit spans), then frankly I would spend the money on evals by a neuropsych before I did vision therapy (and I have done both along with hiring a tutor for my dyslexic son). Ultimately, I think a neuropsych will give you the most answers, and, frankly, from what I see on this board, most folks eventually do end up there (after alternative therapies and evals from other professionals). Why not just start there? As far as broken, I think we all feel some sense of grief in discovering that our child doesn't fit within the typical bell curve. However, after all the years of hard work with my own dyslexic son, I can tell you that I see some incredibly profound gifts that are a direct result of how his brain works.

:iagree::iagree: I think you would be doing a huge service for other families and for this worker to learn about others. I did something similar at our church, sharing with the elementary co-ordinator how her language made me feel. I focused it very much about how this comes across to me and how it made me feel. It was well received.

That is a really good point.

:iagree: I think it is fine to send an email to explain. This is an important education opportunity for that department as this type of language is not ok.

I would also be looking into reading programs like Barton or working with an Orton-Gillingham/ Wilson/ Slingerland tutor.